The fertiliser terminal at the Ust Luga port (Leningrad Region) should be brought into use in 2005, according to Valery Izrailit, the general director of the Ust Luga Company. As previously expected, construction of the terminal will be completed in the second half of 2004. Construction work was halted in the second half of 2002 before a four-way agreement was signed between the Ust Luga Company, the Leningrad regional administration, the Russian Transport Ministry and the Russian Railway Ministry. The document sets out mutual guarantees and obligations for implementing the port project in the Luga Bay area of the Gulf of Finland.

The cost of the first stage of the terminal is USD 30 million and will allow up to 2.5 million tonnes of fertilisers to be loaded each year. It had previously been planned that the terminal would reach its full capacity of 5 million tonnes of fertilisers a year during 2004-2005. Construction of the first stage is being financed by the Russian Development Bank and the main shareholders in Roskhimtermal: Akron (Novgorod) and Silvinit (Perm). They have already concluded contracts with the Ust Luga Company for exporting 1.5 million and 1 million tonnes of fertilisers respectively.

The Ust Luga Company was registered on May 29, 1992. Its main shareholders are the Leningrad Region's State Property Management Committee (27.33%), and the United Financial-Industrial Company (21.9%). Other shareholders, including 4 offshore companies, own the remaining 57.77% of the company.

More than 5.8 million people voted for Nicholas Maduro at the presidential election in Venezuela. This is more than a quarter of registered voters. Why did those people vote for the man, who, as Western media write, took Venezuela to the brink of collapse?